What can ignorant, guilty, or afflicted people do without this friend "born for adversity?" What can a man do, in whom all these disasters meet? Suppose any one of you should get a mischief in harvest-time, and should be obliged "to say unto the driver, Turn thine hand and carry me home, for I am wounded." Suppose as you are carrying home, and your "blood running out of the wound into the midst" of the carriage, you should find yourself oppressed with a remembrance of all your sins, and guilt lie hard and heavy on your conscience; then you would feel your mind overwhelmed with a thick midnight ignorance, and something in your soul foreboding danger. Suppose, when your neighbours come round, one should shake her head, another wipe her eyes with her apron, and a third wring her hands, and say, "Prepare to meet thy God; behold the Judge of all the earth standeth before the door;" I ask, in such a case, would you, could you help asking, "Is there no balm in Gilead, no physician there? Is the harvest of life past, the summer ended, and I not saved?" You would ask such questions, the necessity of your case would compel you to ask such questions, and perhaps there would be no person about you that knew what to say; perhaps some more intent upon your money than your soul, would thrust these questions aside to make room for a lawyer to make your will; and perhaps some as ignorant as yourself would quiet you with superstition instead of the religion of faith and repentance, saying, "Peace, peace, when there is no peace; for there is no peace," with the sacrament or without it, "there is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked."

Brethren, are there no death wounds but such as we receive in the manner just now mentioned? Fevers, consumptions, and old age, do they never kill; and if accidents slay thousands in a hundred years, do not diseases slay ten thousands every day? Let us foresee our end, and, if nothing else prevail with us, let the necessity of dying engage us to inquire, "If a man die, shall he live again? If man wasteth away, and give up the ghost, where is he?" Yes, he shall live again, he must live again, "the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall

be raised;" "the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burnt up;" "the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven, with his mighty angels in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power." Are we under a necessity of passing through all these events, and will not a conviction of this establish the text in regard to us? Jesus Christ" cannot be hid ;" our necessities oblige us to inquire after him. We are under a necessity of dying, and the power that brings us to the grave will not consult us about the time or the means. We are under a necessity of rising from the dead, and we shall have no choice to rise, or to "sleep in the dust of the earth." We are under a necessity of meeting the Judge, and standing trial before God: we shall have no choice to be tried, or not to be tried. We must of necessity live in a future state, either in happiness or misery. All these events are fixed, and the whole world can alter nothing. And do not all these become preachers to us? Doth not conscience within join with events without, and doth not each say, "I would make supplication to my judge?" "Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near." "Surely the floods of great waters shall not come nigh unto him, who prayeth unto God in a time when he may be found.”

How many Christians can look back, and bless the hand that compelled them to inquire after a Saviour! They were once "at ease in Zion." Affliction joined with a prophet, and poured into their ears, "Wo be to them that are at ease. Wo to the drunkard. Wo to him, that striveth with his Maker. Wo to him that buildeth his house in unrighteousness, and that useth his neighbour's service without wages. Wo to him that putteth his bottle to his neighbour, and maketh him drunk. Wo unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites." Surrounded with warnings and proofs of danger, and being like Noah "moved with fear," lest the flood coming up

on ungodly men should carry him away, each entered into an examination of himself, and full of a conviction of the injustice of his life, the enmity of his heart, and the danger of his condition, fell down on his knees, alf contrite and broken, and said, "Wo is me, I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips!" The more he thought thereon, the more he wept. He seemed to himself like a man woke out of a dream, the day almost gone, the night near at hand. He said, "I perish with hunger." I hunger and thirst, not for the perishing things of this world, not for my own innocence, which is irrecoverably lost, not merely for repentance, for what can repentance do, unless God will accept it; "I will arise and go to my father," and ask him to feed my soul with forgiveness: but the nearer I approach him, the more fully I perceive he is of "purer eyes than to behold iniquity." What shall I do? Or whither shall I flee? Full of these just reflections he became grave, serious, and thoughtful, left off his former course of life, and forsook his old companions in sin. In vain they endeavoured to administer relief by telling him, God was merciful, he was no worse than his neighbours, repentance would make him melancholy, and raptures in religion raving mad. To all these he replied, "Miserable comforters are ye all. If your soul were in my soul's stead, I also could speak as ye do." Christians came round him; he read the book, and heard the Gospel, from which they assured him they had derived instruction, that had relieved them in the same condition. He thought within himself, I am in the condition of the four lepers, who sat between the walls of a city perishing with famine, and the army of an enemy full of riches and plenty of provisions, and who reasoned thus: "If we say we will enter into the city, then the famine is in the city, and we shall die there; and if we sit still here, we die also." We will repair unto the army, "if they save us alive, we shall live, and if they kill us, we shall but die." He applied this to himself, and said, if I return to the practice of sin, I shall be inevitably lost; if I continue as I am, reflection and remorse will make -me die with despair: I have been an enemy to good men, and even fighting against God; "my soul hath

loathed them, and their soul also hath abhorred" such characters as mine; however, I will repair to Christian assemblies; the church is Bethesda, a house of mercy, "it may be that the Lord of hosts will be gracious :" yet God is a just and holy being, and his law saith, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die;" at all events, I must go, and I will go in unto the king, which is not according to the law, and if I perish, I perish." To how many trembling souls hath God, who "delighteth in mercy," held out the golden sceptre of grace, and said, What wilt thou? it shall be given thee! Hence that joy unspeakable and full of glory, that " health of the countenance," that "strength of the heart," and all the holy exercises of a pious, just, and benevolent life, "full of mercy and good fruits."

Whither hath this subject carried me! I have followed it, and I am got beyond what I proposed to treat of. I was to show you, that the person of Christ, and the Gospel of Christ "could not be hid:" but it seems, the Gospel not only cannot be concealed in the bosom of the Saviour, where there is nothing to resist its effusion toward us; but it cannot be hid even in the heart of a wretched sinful man, whose dispositions are strongly bent to confine it. No, religion is of divine origin, noble by nature, and disdains confinement. Repentance in the heart will get into the eye, and come out into company trickling down the cheek in silver drops like dew. Meekness in the heart will make its way to the countenance, and sit there smiling like a morning in spring; pity will slide the hand into the purse, and by procuring relief for the wretched, publish the inexpressible feelings of the heart. Justice will be at every bargain, along with every contract, sometimes in the hand holding the pen, and at other times in the tongue, saying both at the manor court and in the field, "Cursed be he that removeth his neighbour's landmark, cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of the law to do them." Christianity "cannot be hid." I might go further, and show you, that it will break out, even where frail men, under the power of violent temptation, take the utmost pains to suppress it. Whence that half-en

joyment of sin, which men of little religion, eager to glut themselves with it, so often discover? Observe Peter. He sat among the enemies of Christ. Said one, "Thou wast with Jesus:" No, said he, "woman, I know him not." Said another, presently, "Thou art one of them :" No, said he, “man, I am not." About an hour after, a third said, "Surely thou art one of them, for thy speech betrayeth thee." Was it only the Galilean broad country way of speaking that betrayed him? Were there no looks of anxiety toward his master? No indignation in his countenance against the cruel talk of the company? Was there never a sigh stole out unperceived by him, but observed by the company? Did he utter, "I know not the man," without blushing and hesitating? When he began to curse and to swear, did he go about his work like a workman, a master blasphemer? I think not. I think a good man swears, as a blasphemer prays, that is, with an ill grace; the very tone and air of the speech betray the temper of the heart.

To conclude. If we love concealment, let us observe the kingdom of sin; it is a kingdom of darkness. Remember what the Scripture calls the place of him that knoweth not God. "The light is dark in his tabernacle. The snare is hidden for him in the ground, and a trap is set for him in the way. He walketh upon a snare, and his own counsel shall cast him down. Destruction shall be ready at his side, and the first born of death shall devour his strength. He shall be chased out of the world, and be brought to the king of terrors. He shall flee from the iron weapon, and the bow of steel shall strike him through. The heaven shall reveal his iniquity, the earth shall rise up against him, and he shall drink of the wrath of the Almighty. This is the portion of a wicked man, the heritage appointed unto him by God." God grant us grace "to flee from the wrath to come." To him be honour and glory for ever. Amen.

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